2020 Events

Interview with Nusreta Sivac, recipient of the 2020 Civic Courage Award. In Bosnian.

A complete English-language translation is available through the transcript provided here. Translated by Adna Karamehic-Oates.

The presentation of the award and events planned in March were cancelled due to COVID-19. In their stead, the Center arranged to record an interview that would allow Ms. Sivac to talk about her experiences.

Interviewer: Adna Karamehic-Oates
Interview Date: December 30, 2020

The Civic Courage Award was established in 2015 and is awarded for courageous commitment to the civic values of respect, equality, and pluralism that represent the best traditions of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Recipients are presented with the award at a formal ceremony and reception hosted by the Center for Bosnian Studies.

This online panel discussion was part of the Missouri Historical Society's STL History Live series.

A panel discussion to mark the 25th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide.

Scholars in the fields of genocide, memory, and archival studies address ongoing revisionist efforts about what happened in Srebrenica and discuss the importance of countering this rhetoric in order to defend the truth.

This presentation was part of an international two-day virtual symposium: Bosnia, 25 Years After the Dayton Accords.

From November 1-21, 1995, the presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia met at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside of Dayton, Ohio, along with high-level officials from the United States, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom. All were seeking an end to the war in Bosnia that had taken over 100,000 lives over the course of the previous 3+ years.

The peace agreement that resulted – known as the Dayton Accords – did exactly that, but were quickly recognized as flawed and problematic. Now, 25 years later, the costs of peace as spelled out in the Accords have become clearer. We take this opportunity to look back at the Accords and to consider the trajectory of Bosnian politics in the quarter-century that has passed since then.

Hosted by the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, the Southern Connecticut State University Office of Academic Affairs, and the Southern Connecticut State University Judaic Studies Program.

Free admission is free; registration required.

The quarter-century that has passed since the end of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina has seen an outpouring of scholarly research into Bosnian history, politics, and culture. Some scholars have sought to redress genocide and human rights violations, many of which have gone unpunished by local and international courts. Others have documented the multiethnic “common life” that characterized Bosnian culture and history prior to the rise of ethno-nationalism in the 1980s. Still others have studied the implications of forced displacement for Bosnians of all ethnicities, many of whom have formed diaspora communities in Europe, Australia, and North America. As scholars have continued these conversations across national and disciplinary boundaries, they have formed a new field of academic inquiry that we call Bosnian studies.

This pre-recorded panel discussion is intended for laypeople and academicians with some prior knowledge about the Bosnian war and genocide. It will consider the ways that scholars in a variety of academic disciplines have contributed to the emerging field of Bosnian studies or deployed scholarship in the pursuit of justice. Of special interest are the contributions of scholars from Bosnia-Herzegovina who now live in diaspora. Also of interest are the ways that scholarship provides an avenue for reckoning with the current vexed cultural and political situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where ethnic tensions persist and where past injustices continue to shape political structures and social institutions.

Moderated by Ben Moore.